By signing Lyall Cameron on a pre-contract deal on the final day of the winter transfer window, Rangers not only landed themselves a deal which made a whole lot of sense from a sporting perspective but a financial one too.
Rangers’ current midfield options, for all of Nico Raskin’s ferocity, Mohamed Diomande’s swagger and Connor Barron’s control, are not exactly much of a goal threat.
Between them, the trio have just six goals across 2024/25, and Diomande accounts for five of those. Lyall Cameron, in contrast, has eight in the colours of Dundee. And while many have wondered where he fits into Philippe Clement’s team, Cameron adds a different kind of weapon to Rangers’ armoury with those trademark driving runs into the penalty area and his ice-cool finishing.
What’s more, Rangers have snapped up one of the brightest young talents in Scottish football for a rather nominal fee.
Rangers paid Aberdeen around £600,000 when Connor Barron arrived at Ibrox in similar circumstances a year previously. Cameron, according to the Daily Record, will reportedly set the Glasgow giants back even less. Just £400,000, via a tribunal.
And, in the process, Rangers might just have saved themselves a far heftier outlay later down the line.
Lyall Cameron arrival means Rangers don’t need Marko Soldo
Football correspondent Graeme Bailey exclusively told Rangers News back in January that Marko Soldo’s £2.5 million price-tag made a switch to Glasgow impossible this winter.
Bringing in only a loanee in Rafael Fernandes alongside the aforementioned Cameron, Clement and Nils Koppen were forced to operate on the tightest of pursestrings.
As such, despite keeping a close eye on Soldo during his breakout campaign in Croatian football, the prohibitive demands set out by NK Osijek may just have provided the extra push Rangers needed to formalise their interest in Cameron instead.
Given the similarities between both players, it certainly seems unlikely that Rangers will be putting £2.5 million aside ahead of a renewed assault on the Croatia Under-21 international this summer.
If Cameron’s stand-out attributes are his running power and his well-timed runs into the penalty area, then the same can be said of Dinamo Zagreb academy graduate Soldo.
Marko Soldo and Lyall Cameron are two very similar midfielders
“[Soldo excels when given] the role of a box-to-box midfielder, who is powerful in running, attacks the space in the attacking phase,” Croatian publication Germanijak wrote a few months ago while providing a deep dive into the youngster’s emergence as one of the division’s most potent goalscoring midfielders.
“He is also extremely powerful and versatile physically.”
Such a run-down will feel eerily familiar to the Dundee supporters who watched Cameron blossom under Tony Docherty’s tutelage at Dens Park.
It’s telling that, as former Dundee loanee Scott Allan reacted to Rangers’ deadline day swoop, he offered a similar selection of attributes when talking about Cameron.
“He’s a player I’ve admired for a long time,” Allan tells BBC Scotland. “I think he’s exactly what Rangers need.
“Lyall is a player who’s always looking to get on the ball, looking to create, passes the ball forward. Something that Rangers fans should get excited about.”
